madmike

I always thought the BL for younger cubs was a really bad idea, sure all little kids like to get mail, but how many Tiger/Bear Cubs are going to actually read the magazine? I know mine didnt at that age(other than look at thr pictures)

If they want to make membership $20 they should just do it and not try and supplement revenue with the boys life subscriptions..

I didnt see any sort of "suggestion box" so forgive me if this is out of place.

This forum seems to have the largest number of members, but has the oldest format of message board software. compared to other sites such as www.scoutingforum.org & www.scoutingboard.com (both have almost zero activity)

Are there any plans to upgrade the forum software (to something like Invision Power Board or VBulletin)? Is there a need for a small donation from members?

I enjoy reading this forum (yes I am fairly new) but its almost painful to post because this format is incredibly S L O W ....

I wouldnt push woodbadge training, but it will be easier since you have time, to have the new CM get all the other required training out of the way.

I became a Tiger Den Leader (of 18 tigers ~yes please pray for me,often~) and ACM in one week. Our current CM is leaving at the end of the school year (his kid is going into BS) but he has already "left" for the most part, so my biggest headache was dealing with both the new pack leadership duties and fitting in BALOO, leader specific training,etc,roundtables in all in a short time.

I didnt think a felony can be expunged? Or are they making a special case since he is a minor?

Robb, just so you know I wasnt trying to imply any "better than though" that a lot of folks on these scouting sites seem to do, I was just seeing myself in your post (I'm 33) I was just trying to throw the "quit" bug in your ear...

But its been a month, and that nicotine must be some strong stuff, cause there havent been many days that I havent had "the urge"...

Simply tell this adult that even though he can legally smoke, he wont be able to smoke on your outings? doesnt seem that complicated to me...

But as someone who just passed the 4 weeks mark without having a smoke, after 8 years of smoking, take this as a good time to quit, quit as a group.

One of the main reasons I quit was because I didnt want to be "that guy" sneaking off to feed some nicotine addiction every few hours on scouting events..

I smoked about a pack and a half of camel filters a day for more than 8 years. Dont waste money on the patch, gum, etc, just quit cold turkey, It sucks for a week, but if you get past the week its easy..

Its also easy if you just stop buying them

we would usually have more scouts on the outings than at the meetings it seemed.

But I dont see anything wrong with having a patrol made up of the most active members of the trooop.

I think one problem (I am in your area) is that maybe there are too many troops, and some consolidation needs to be done, but then the adults start turf wars and "stuff"

reading through this thread you would think there were some 80 year old old ladies here!

Cub Scout Camping requires a parent / guardian to go, If things get "that bad" they can pack up and go home, its not like they are going to be 50 miles in at Philmont.

just to give some more insite into the stump removal, this was at summer camp, and the camp had asked troops to remove as many stumps as they could that were in the "general open area" so there were no environmental issues, since it was requested by the landowners, and I think our leaders developed a good way to get rid of some of them.

You also were not given a specific time frame of having to remove the stump, I think I worked on mine off and on for a few days.

Also to point out this was the kind of SM who rarely raised his voice, but I think it was a great idea. There wasnt any "hazing" where the rest of the troop stood in a circle , pointed and yelled "Tree Urinater!" or anything.

I like Eagle Dad's idea, I actually use that when my own kids wont go to sleep, after several attempts to get them to sleep, we take a walk around our neighborhood to get them tired..As a parent I certianly wouldnt object to that type of hike, but I think some folks have gotten a little soft.

I dont really recall a lot of push ups being given out, I think some were done, a lot of times in jest.

So whats the "limit" I recall we had things in place where if you failed to do a patrol task, such as clean the camp dishes, you would get double the share of dish duty to make up for slacking off. Anyone could construe that as harrasment / hazing these days..

The point would be that while it might appear to be a shortcut to "use a tree" in the middle of the night, you can save yourself several hours removing a stump the next day, if you take the extra steps to the designated latrine....

If you had to remove a stump, you received a "yellow stump" award at a ceremony, it wasnt hazing, it was all in good fun/learning consequences. I still have mine at home, if this forum wasnt a few years behind(technology wise) I would post a picture of it.

In my opinion, I dont really think a "few" push ups is corporal punishment, Corporal Punishment defined:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment

But if a SM did this today would he be against the "Guide to Safe Scouting"?

I was reading another forum in which it was discussed that making scouts do push ups for corrective / disciplinary action is not permitted by BSA.

This made me think about something that was the "rule" when I was a kid in scouting (80's) at least in our troop.

If you were caught using the bathroom anywhere other than the designated "latrine" area (i.e. say you were caught urinating on a tree late in the night because you were too undisciplined to walk to the latrine)

the punishment was (if you were caught) that you had to dig up a stump from the camping area (The stump was selected by the Scoutmaster) generally your first offense you got a small stump, and then so on and so on..

I myself had to dig up a stump once, and that was the last time I beleive I used an unofficial latrine. So I would say the punishment was fair and worked.

It also served to remove stumps, which are in general a safety hazard while you are walking to the latrin late at night

So would this "stump patrol" be considered hazing today?

try hitting up the school PTA

thats where our pack does most of the advertising, the meetings while usually are held at school are not under the control of the school.

I live in suburbia, and out PTA is so active its almost annoying, so its always a good place to showcase the cub scouts and recruit!

never mind, talked to one of their admins who said it isnt going to happen, apparantly there have been lots of previous attempts and they all get deleted.

either an eagle becomes a politician, or somewhat "famous/infamous" or it doesnt get on there..I tried to add my dad, who served as an officer in Vietnam, earned the bronze star and it got the axe, but I see similar people with miltary service who are on there, I think the thing is moderated my major internet geeks

on the "notable" list of eagles, apparantly you are given 2 days to prove the person is "notable" and you have to present to them a # (or something)

anyways, if you know of a notable eagle at least try and add them, to me the list they have is somewhat small.

& yes this was a little vain...

But they seem to have every minor league baseball player on there and thats acceptable???

(This message has been edited by madmike)(This message has been edited by madmike)

I noticed on wikipedia's list of eagle scouts they only select "notable" eagle scouts (politicians mainly it seems) I was wanting to start an article for ALL eagle scouts, IMO anything where less than 5% of a group attains a certain rank, to me is notable.

I dont know if any of you have ever dealt with wikipeida, but its very hard to get an article to stay around (without getting deleted). If the page was created, I think you have 5 days for it to be reviewed before it gets deleted, but I think with help (from lots of you) we could get them to include it?

here is the link to the current page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Eagle_Scouts

Any thoughts? I think if we had the "list" predefined at the time we post the article it might give it "staying power"

If there is interest i will start the page and post the link...

wow 900K?

makes me wonder why I have to drag the kids down to my local Kroger and sell popcorn if they are paying that kind of dough, I would think $250,000 would be more than enough to get a qualified "scouts" President.

Something else I would like to see is for some of the high adventure stuff to make its way to the Discovery Channel and some of the other outdoor networks on cable.

If our president is making $900,000 / year, I fully expect him to get to work on this...

Super Bowl Advertising is around $2.5 million for less than 30 seconds I believe, it might be hard to come up with that kind of cash.

But the intent of the idea is good, to show some of the high adventure things that most kids are going to have a hard time doing on there own.

It would be nice to know what the intent of "Duty to Country" really is.

If your a kid, you cant vote, you can pay some taxes, but other than that what can they really do? I would argue that staying current in school (setting yourself up to be independent later in life, thus voting & paying taxes), not being a crimminal, and learning about how this country is "supposed" to function from a constitution standpoint is about all they can really do.

When you read through some of the older scout handbooks, it points out that scouts (as kids) cant really participate in government, but they have a duty to point out things they see that are wrong to their parents and fellow adult scout leaders to try and bring about discussion for change.

I think the example in my old scout hanbook shows scouts recognizing a lake area that was full of trash, and then showed the scouts organizing a clean up day for the lake.

Of course we teach scouts not to leave anything other than footprints so one could argue that by being in scouts and learning these principles they are in fact being "good citizens" and are not creating a mess for others to clean up

Are they refering to requirement #2 on the Eagle Application? Where you have to get recommendations from a religous affiliated person?

I would imagine that even without going to church regularly at some point in the scouts life he has crossed paths with someone who fits that criteria.

I am not active in a church at the moment, but that doesnt have anything to do with my religous belief.

that sounds like a really good idea (except for going up against the "goliath" troops.)

Maybe they could be set up like some of the Survivor Games were there is also some thinking / enginuity thrown in with the physical events.

We used to have a war games campout versus another troop, sort of a capture the flag (with bombs made out of some sort of flour / dough mixture)thing, It was always a blast ,and you would definatly get some exercise. Aside from the "fun" part we also had to make towers out of lashings, and some of that other "stuff" in the boy scout handbook.

These days I dont know if that would be percieved as "to military like" but it sure was one of the campouts that had a very high level of participation

I realize this thread is old, but it had some really good info in it and wanted to add something.

I can sympathise with new adults who are "overly eager" I just got my son into cub scouts, I was in a very active Boy Scout Troop as a kid / young adult and have my eagle, so I was very excited to get him into scouting. To be honest I even sewed on all his patches for his uniform because we were too impatient to wait for the wife to do it(or take them to the cleaners to have done)Dont tell my ex-infantry buddies that I know how to sew!

Our Pack is fairly large and they looked "squared away" so I didnt want to seem "gung-ho" so I mainly watched the first meeting, and took in the information.

The day after the orientation meeting I emailed the cubmaster and told him I was looking forward to helping out in any way possible and wanted to introduce myself, I got a response back that basically said....

"Good You can be the ACM while you get your training, because I have been doing this for 4 years and no one else wanted to be the CM, so I am glad you can have the CM job in May when My son moves into Boy Scouts"

just thought that was kind of funny. but anyways good info in this thread...

(This message has been edited by madmike)

like others have said having an active program, more than "car camping", respectable hiking, basic rapelling, caving, etc, should be enough to set the tone that scouting recognizes some level of "fitness"

encouraging scouts to do the mile swim at summer camp is also a great fitness test. if you have ever swam a mile you know how hard that is, Its one patch that should warrant a permanent place on the class A uniform.

When I was an older scout, when we would go hiking, we would seperate the troop into a fast group and a slow group, that way neither group was forcing the other to go too fast or too slow, we set it up so that we all camped together at night, and I think it worked out well.

did the CM give the wedgie or his neighbors kid?

either way thats not a good thing to encourage

There is a difference in ignoring females who are involved in scouting, which should be extremely limited in the actual "Boy Scouts",and the BSA having to showcase female members.

I dont think the intent of fitness in the scouting concept was for kids to necessarily excel at fitness, but to make an attempt at it and to stay active.

Adults can also make an attempt, we dont have to run marathons and complete all of the APP. Trail, but it seems we should stay true to the concept of fitness in some regard.